The Genocide Question

[fireofice]

The issue of what exactly counts as "genocide" is an issue that pertains to what happened to the Jews during WW2. Germar Rudolf in his recent debate as well as in the encyclopedia concedes that what happened to the Jews during this period counts as genocide even on the revisionist view.

https://holocaustencyclopedia.com/conce ... cide/4354/

But then at the same time, you could also say that the allied bombing campaign against Germans was genocidal. Mike Peinovich goes over a lengthy list of examples in his debate with Matthew Cockerill.

https://therightstuff.biz/2023/06/17/holocaust-debate/

He says he got many of his examples from Masters of the Air by Donald Miller.

Mentioned by Peinovich is a letter written by Churchill where he says: "But there is one thing that will bring him back and bring him down, and that is an absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland."
https://winstonchurchill.org/publicatio ... ng-policy/

Here he uses the word "extermination". Genocide proved, right?

But what makes the Nazis special is that they supposedly did something that goes above and beyond this. So this is just merely an argument that you are going to have to do more than finding Nazi leaders saying harsh things that sound genocidal since statements like that can be found on both sides. It's also interesting, as Mike points out, that the volume of evidence he provides for mass killings from bombs by the Allies is way more than what we have for Auschwitz and the various "extermination camps".

I also came across these interesting videos:





Here the history of genocide as a concept is gone over and the problems with it. The most interesting is the second video, which goes over the Bosnian genocide or the lack thereof as ruled by the courts. Various tribunals apparently only labeled Srebrenica a genocide, but the rest were considered mere massacres with no genocidal intent. This kind of shows that "genocide" is not an objective term, but used for political purposes. By the same standard, I'm sure I could say that everything the Nazis did to the Jews wasn't "genocide" because I don't interpret their motivations to be actually genocidal. It's all word games.

[TlsMS93]

The definition of genocide depends largely on the intent to destroy in part or in whole a given national, ethnic, religious group, etc.

The Allied strategic bombing campaign over Germany was clearly aimed in part at civilian targets, often to the detriment of military objectives, that is, there was a genocidal intent, perhaps only by the Allied air force but not by the government itself, but even this cannot be ruled out by figures like Churchill, who was in favor of even dousing Germany with poison gas.

As for considering the Holocaust a genocide, even if the central aspects of the Holocaust, such as the gas chambers and mass shootings, are refuted or minimized over time, I do not think it will change the perception that Nazism will somehow be seen in a different light. Decades of mass media crystallizing this perception will keep people stuck in these prejudices even if they are unaware of the many concessions that have already been made to revisionism.

Why don't communist regimes produce the same effect? I think this is largely due to the fact that, at first glance, its proposal is welcoming to all peoples, while Nazism is directed only at Germans, and this despite tons of atrocities that are much greater and longer-lasting than Nazism, because the argument that they were a necessary evil that defeated Nazism arises.

Racism as the root of the issue of genocide ensures that even if these aspects of the Holocaust are refuted, it will continue to be ingrained in the way it is today, while religious crusades such as Islam fighting Christianity and this also being considered genocide do not cause the same repulsion as Nazism.

There are many events that clearly had genocidal intentions, but international institutions clearly reflect the post-1945 situation, so it depends on the customer's face.

[Hektor]

The definition of genocide depends largely on the intent to destroy in part or in whole a given national, ethnic, religious group, etc.

The Allied strategic bombing campaign over Germany was clearly aimed in part at civilian targets, often to the detriment of military objectives, that is, there was a genocidal intent, perhaps only by the Allied air force but not by the government itself, but even this cannot be ruled out by figures like Churchill, who was in favor of even dousing Germany with poison gas.

As for considering the Holocaust a genocide, even if the central aspects of the Holocaust, such as the gas chambers and mass shootings, are refuted or minimized over time, I do not think it will change the perception that Nazism will somehow be seen in a different light. Decades of mass media crystallizing this perception will keep people stuck in these prejudices even if they are unaware of the many concessions that have already been made to revisionism.
...

The key issue is indeed intent. The number of people that died is secondary to that and could be a secondary charge now....The problem is whom you gonna charge. Direct perpetrators can mostly not convincingly be identified. And then there is the issue that testimony is often motivated by other urges than 'love for the truth'....

[TlsMS93]

The definition of genocide depends largely on the intent to destroy in part or in whole a given national, ethnic, religious group, etc.

The Allied strategic bombing campaign over Germany was clearly aimed in part at civilian targets, often to the detriment of military objectives, that is, there was a genocidal intent, perhaps only by the Allied air force but not by the government itself, but even this cannot be ruled out by figures like Churchill, who was in favor of even dousing Germany with poison gas.

As for considering the Holocaust a genocide, even if the central aspects of the Holocaust, such as the gas chambers and mass shootings, are refuted or minimized over time, I do not think it will change the perception that Nazism will somehow be seen in a different light. Decades of mass media crystallizing this perception will keep people stuck in these prejudices even if they are unaware of the many concessions that have already been made to revisionism.
...

The key issue is indeed intent. The number of people that died is secondary to that and could be a secondary charge now....The problem is whom you gonna charge. Direct perpetrators can mostly not convincingly be identified. And then there is the issue that testimony is often motivated by other urges than 'love for the truth'....

Let's assume that the Nazis really did what they did. One could argue that they were killing the disabled to save food and medical resources to target those who contributed to the war effort, just like Aktion T4, since many Jews were spared. When you want to exterminate someone, no one can be spared. No one considers T4 to be a genocide against the disabled because it is not a specific group like nationality, race or religion. Now, was this only directed at Jews? What about the Gypsies, Slavs? Do inflammatory statements prove intentionality? If so, then the Israeli government fits this profile in relation to the Palestinians.

Now, the case against gassings is abundant, against shootings not so much, but a counter-narrative can be established for the war on the Eastern Front.